FMCC passes audit with high marks

Ashley Onyon

News Reporter

aonyon@leaderherald.com

JOHNSTOWN — Fulton-Montgomery Community College earned the highest grade possible once again in an independent audit of the school’s 2016-17 financial statements.

Representatives from West & Company CPAs of Gloversville presented the final audit report to the Board of Trustees during Thursday’s meeting. Delivery of the year end report that was started in October was delayed while auditors waited to receive information from the state.

Amy Pedrick and Jill Thaisz, certified public accountants with West & Company, summarized the 47-page document for the board.

“The financial statements are fairly presented, that is a clean unmodified opinion which is the highest that we can give and that is what the college has received in the past,” Thaisz said.

Capital assets for the school came in at $18.25 million, of that amount $4.15 million represented additions due to capital projects. Operating expenses for the school were $24.7 million, a decrease of about $205,000 over the previous year. Revenues for the school exceeded expenditures by $590,080.

As the college spends over $750,000 in federal grant money each year, a single audit was performed to ensure compliance with grant funding requirements. Thaisz said that the audit resulted in another “clean, unqualified opinion” for both compliance with government standards and internal controls.

“If there were any material weaknesses or deficiencies to report they would be in here, but there are none,” Thaisz said.

Additionally, auditors examined the relationship between FMCC, the Fulmont College Association and the FMCC Foundation at the request of college President Dustin Swanger in light of recent visits by the state comptroller’s office to other community colleges.

According to Pedrick, reports from the comptroller’s office have focused on the transparency and independence of the various college boards. West & Company performs the audits for FCA and the foundation and found that their boards are relatively independent and representative of who they serve.

For FMCC, Pedrick recommended that the Board of Trustees perform a cost benefit analysis of the FCA and the foundation on a five year rolling average.

“Just take a look to make sure that for the money that you’re putting into these organizations the college is receiving the appropriate benefit back,” Pedrick said. “Obviously the foundation has done a tremendous job of raising funds in the last few years. FCA does a tremendous job for the students and the organizations and is one of the draws that has students come here.”

FMCC pays the salaries of the director and assistant for the foundation, as well as the cost of providing space and utilities. The school also covers the cost of providing space and other supplies for service provider FCA. FCA consists of the bookstore and student housing and oversees the school’s food service provider, Chartwells.

Pedrick also recommended that the boards for the three organizations meet once a year to discuss individual plans and to determine a structured path for the coming year.

“Overall the audit went very well, everybody here does a great job. Books and records are in great shape for all three organizations. All three audits went very well, as it has in the past,” Pedrick said.

Following the presentation the board went into a brief executive session to further discuss the audit results before resuming the public meeting and voting unanimously to accept the audit.

“Our auditors are always happy to come here. They know that we look forward to the audit, because if they find something we need to fix then we know about it. And as you know, there were no findings, there were no recommendations, it was a very clean audit. So I want to thank everybody that worked on that,” Swanger said.